Grand Tour by Christine P. Bishop

When it’s time to give each project featured in our books and magazine a name, it can sometimes be a challenge. With well over 1,000 projects already published and counting, coming up with something original for each one (no duplicates allowed!) is often a creative writing exercise.

Thankfully though, naming Christine P. Bishop’s latest design, featured in Inspirations issue #118, was an easy one. After our publishing team wrote the following description for this piece, the name practically chose itself…

Grand Tour is the perfect name for a design that incorporates the technique Punto antico from Italy, the disciplines of withdrawn, pulled thread and whitework embroidery from Schwalm in Germany and the rather unique diagonal pulled four-sided stitch found on Lefkaritiko embroideries from Cyprus.

While all that may sound a little overwhelming, you may be surprised to know that this entire project is worked using only six different stitches, two sizes of needles and two weights of cotton thread with both in the same colour – DMC 712 cream.

What Christine has beautifully demonstrated in this multicultural piece is really somewhat of a modern-day phenomenon. Not that long ago embroidery pieces such as this would only feature techniques from a singular region as that is all the stitcher would have known.

Today, we have the benefit of accessing a plethora of information and educating ourselves across multi-disciplines of stitches and techniques. This affords us the luxury of picking and choosing from a huge variety of knowledge and blending and crossing over from one regional style to another, all in the one design.

The other aspect to this piece we really like is the restrained approach Christine uses, despite her ‘Grand Tour’ taking in multiple regions

Rather than getting giddy at the prospect of combining numerous regional techniques and being tempted to add in more to show more, she does the opposite. Christine uses less to show more which is evident in the elegant, delightful simplicity of the final piece. 

We hope you enjoyed our tour, be sure to stop by the gift shop on the way out and purchase your copy of Inspirations issue #118 if you don’t already have one. And we even have Grand Tour Ready-to-Stitch kits available as a memento of your journey with us today!

Step 1 – Purchase Project Instructions

Grand Tour by Christine P. Bishop is a delightful withdrawn and pulled thread, rectangular mat.

Step 2 – Purchase Ready-To-Stitch Kit

The Inspirations Ready-To-Stitch kit for Grand Tour includes everything* you need to re-create this elegant table mat: Fabrics (unprinted), embroidery threads and needles.

*Please Note: To cater for flexibility of purchase, instructions are not included with our kits. For step-by-step directions on how to create this project, please refer to the magazine/digital pattern.